Endless War
by LexiLopezi
Summary: One of my many weird theories. What if Respawn means they never stop fighting? There is absolutely no yaoi and/or slash in this fanfic. Seriously, what's wrong with you people?


**Endless War**

It all started with a slight bug in the Respawn system.

RED Scout had just been killed by the BLU Soldier, and was in the process of Respawning. RED had just won by a hair, and as he faded into consciousness, the Bostonian could hear the Announcer's harsh voice.

"_Victory._"

For some reason, Respawn had a few bugs that popped up occasionally. Normally it wasn't anything serious, like eyes changing colours, or streaks of hair (the one time Spy had had tentacles instead of legs was hilarious, though no one had a big enough death wish to say it to his face). It was usually fixed the next time they died and came back.

This time was different. This time, instead of physical glitches, it was a mental one.

When the dreams started, Scout thought nothing about it. He sometimes dreamt of the times before and leading up to his recruitment by RED. Then he started noticing little details that didn't seem quite right. He hadn't _really_ signed up in 1968, had he? It was, what, 2012 now? Sure, he couldn't remember the last time he'd visited Boston and seen his ma, but he was still getting letters from her. It couldn't have been that long, right?

Right?

* * *

Whenever the team had a problem, they went to the Engineer to solve it. Be it Sniper and Spy getting into an argument, or Soldier in a ranting mood with no one to listen to him, Engie was the go to guy. Scout was no exception.

"Yo Hardhat, uh, can I ask you somethin'?"

Engineer started and turned around from the sentry he'd been tinkering with. Since when had Scout been so good at sneaking up on people? And he wasn't yammering on and on about baseball or something…

"_Spah check!_"

"OW! WHAT DA HELL WAS DAT FOR?!"

Scout clutched his stomach and glared at Engie, who had just slugged him in the gut with a wrench. At least he had the decency to look apologetic.

"Heh, sorry. Thought you were the BLU Spah."

"Do I look like one 'a dose scumbags to ya?!"

"Diguise kit, 'member? Anywho, whaddaya want?"

"I forgot. Lemme think for a sec… oh yeah. How long've we been fightin' dose BLUs?"

"A few years now. You _sure_ you ain't the BLU Spah?"

"If I was, you'd be dead. When did we sign up?"

"Uh, 1968?"

"An' what year's it now?"

"20… 2012… huh." Engineer shrugged. He didn't have a wife and kids, and he got to mess around with machines. Being hired by RED had been one of the best things in his life. It wasn't much of a big deal to him.

"I never thought 'bout it before. Life here's always the same, wake up, eat, fight BLUs, shower, eat, sleep. I don't really notice. So how did _you_?"

"Ah dunno. Ah stahted havin' dese weird dreams a while ago. Think it was when ya found dat rat in da Respawn machine a few months back."

Both winced slightly. The aforementioned Tentaspy incident had been caused by a rat running around said Respawn machine. Among other things…

"Da dreams were mostly about when I joined RED, an' ah saw da date on da contract. Second 'a February, 1968. An' one more thing. Da contract said we'd be workin' fer RED fer five years. An' ah noticed somethin' else. Ev'ry five years, we go ta HQ fer a routine checkup, an' they stick needles an' sh*t inta us, right?"

"Yep."

"Before ah asked you jus' now, didja ever think 'bout anythin' before da last checkup?"

"They're messin' with our heads." It wasn't often that Scout surprised Engineer. "It's weird an' all, but as long as I got my machines, I'm fine."

Scout was frustrated.

"Dude, why're you bein' so friggin' calm about dis c**p? Don'tcha care dat we've been he'e fer _forty years_? You've gotta have a family at home or somethin'! What if you never see 'em again?"

"…"

"Ya _do_ got a fam'ly right?"

"…"

"Oh."

More silence.

Then Scout thought of something else (he's pretty smart today, maybe he's been hanging around Engie too often, he'll probably go rot his brains in front of the tv later).

"What if we're stuck he'e _forever_," Scout said quietly.

"It's… possible. We haven't aged a bit since we got here, ya noticed? I mean, you still look like, what, 21? Respawn keep resetting us to however old we were when we signed up. This could continue on for a long time."

Scout fiddled with his dog tags.

"I don' wanna stay he'e forever. Ah miss Ma an' mah brotha's."

"Maybe you can ask the Announcer for a- nevermind."

Asking the Announcer for anything unnecessary for battle was likely to be rewarded by a good half hour of verbal abuse.

* * *

Later that night, insomnia struck the runner. The cold realization hit Scout harder than his BLU counterpart's bat ever could.

"Ah'll never go home."

Nothing heard him save the cold, bright stars.

* * *

_A/N: Well that was a crappy ending. This was just something I thought of. What if Respawning meant they would keep coming back, never get old, and could fight forever? Hope I got the accents decent, if not correct. I get the feeling they're OOC. Sorry._


End file.
